If only they showed some overclocked figures in there...on the other hand, overclocking Haswell is such a crapshoot, because you have to factor in both core clock and uncore/cache/ring bus clock (core is most important, but it's still another variable thrown into the mix), along with the ridiculous variance in chips. (I'm already unhappy about having a chip that's in the bottom 30%, needing over 1.3v just to pass 4.3 GHz...)

That said, if BF4 really loves Hyper-Threading that much, I figure that I might as well pay up the extra and step up to the i7-4770K next time I visit Micro Center. An extra $80's not much to pay for that kind of boost in performance, and the replacement's bound to suck much less at overclocking.

I'm at least glad to see AMD doing competitively enough in massively multi-threaded applications, but if they don't do something about their per-thread performance deficiency, then they won't win me over. I've got enough titles limited by per-thread performance as is.

Also, I made a last-ditch effort with that GTX 480 by attempting the usual bake-in-the-oven BGA reflow. It failed...three times. All I got out of it was a bunch of blown capacitors. Stick a fork in it, it's done. I'm tired of trying to revive this card, it's dead to me, time to put up with the 8800 GT or buy that next graphics card earlier than planned.

I'd really rather wait for Maxwell/GTX 800, but I can't go back to 8800 GT performance now. That card bottlenecked the Q6600 pretty hard, and a 4670K would be even more insulted. I guess I'll just have to bank on the EVGA Step-Up Program or something similar here, if they can get Maxwell cards out by February 2014.

(GASP) Hello, fellow Terrarian. If you may, my friend and I host a private server, and I don't know if I could trust you, but if you have a Steam, I could contact you that way. (Jeez, I sound so business-like)

(GASP again) Hail, Terrarian! I've been itching to get my server running, but I never knew anyone around here plays it too. I've been playing it for about a week with my sister, but she's not willing to go Hardmode after I corrupted my Hardmode world file, so my equips are pretty much noob...for now. Anyway, how did you get to run the server?! I've a friend who's looking to play, but somehow the port forwarding part is more confusing than anticipated. Could you help me out?

(GASP again) Hail, Terrarian! I've been itching to get my server running, but I never knew anyone around here plays it too. I've been playing it for about a week with my sister, but she's not willing to go Hardmode after I corrupted my Hardmode world file, so my equips are pretty much noob...for now. Anyway, how did you get to run the server?! I've a friend who's looking to play, but somehow the port forwarding part is more confusing than anticipated. Could you help me out?

I don't know if you can do it in the PRC, but type in your IP address in your URL bar. Try to find the port forwarding tab and open up a port with a certain port number. Then, disable your firewall. Google it if you need.

Back to the initial topic, if you cannot open external ports, you cannot host an online server. There are ISPs that do not provide this service aka "free firewall ". You should also make sure your external IP is static. If not you can call ISP to reserve your IP (usually free).

Just like desktop Windows and the Metro/Modern UI, yet both corporations insist on mashing them together. Argh.

In the meantime, I went and exchanged the i5-4670K for an i7-4770K. This one actually looks like it won't totally suck for overclocking this time, likely being in the upper 50% of the chip lottery, but I've only just begun my testing.

I'm planning to rerun my Logitech G35s to buy some Senn HD429 and a cheap mic. I figured it would sound better and the mic would be better than the one on the G35s. Anyone know of a microphone that can keep me under $100? (The 429s are $60, so maybe anything under $40)

I'm planning to rerun my Logitech G35s to buy some Senn HD429 and a cheap mic. I figured it would sound better and the mic would be better than the one on the G35s. Anyone know of a microphone that can keep me under $100? (The 429s are $60, so maybe anything under $40)

Blue Snowball, I have one and it's not bad at all, I'm not sure how much it'll cost in your neck of the woods.

I would mention the ModMic again, but the 4.0 revision sure is taking a while...

I have heard great things about various Blue microphone models, for those in need of a desktop USB mic. Don't own one myself, though.

*does some stress-testing with the new i7-4770K*

4.6 GHz on only 1.312-1.328V (VID 1.295V)...I'm right at the thermal limits to the point where I can only run Prime95 AVX instead of FMA3, but I think this one's a keeper, possibly even worth delidding. Just passed Prime95 small FFTs AVX for over an hour straight; it usually BSODs with a 124 before that point if not given enough Vcore.

Maybe it's not the best 4770K out there, but after the horrible 4670K results I had to deal with earlier, I'll take it!

It picks up voice with very little amplification. I have the slider set to about 12% in Windows 8.

You've got to be a sheep to buy a snowflake for teamspeak/skype

VoIP compression alogorithms make an expensive microphone worthless, but they're great for youtube videos, etc. The webcam also is very good for skype, and works well to make video mugshot overlays in videos.